Prepping for ???

[UrbanHunter]

It seems like only yesterday, everyone was saying what Happened??!!!! Things are so much better now (but more expensive). The past few months have been a good opportunity to clean out our old supply shelves, to appreciate what we have, and learn to be more frugal.

That’s all behind us now, the sun is shining, no worries mate!

But have we really learned anything?

 

[Spikedriver]

Can't believe I missed this thread earlier...

First off, Sam has a great perspective that I hadn't really considered, and I also would love to emulate that "I get to" outlook on life. As for the "why" of prepping, I'm not much of a prepper, per se. I've realized I'm more into looking at possibilities - "If X happens, I can do Y with what is available at Z location". Or, how would I deal with Situation A, at home vs. said situation if I was traveling. My actual preps are more short term - 3 day and 7 day type stuff. If the S ever truly does hit the F I'm not going to be above ground that long due to medical needs that won't be met. So I'm not that concerned about the long term. But, self sufficiency is both wise and also good business. "Growing" and and "knowing" are the basis of prepping, I think...

 

[Bacpacker]

I'm a prepper (I guess) because life happens and if you don't prepare it happens to you.

I met a guy who was loading my TV and valuables into a mig-shift pack, when I asked him what (The F>>>) he was doing he pulled a knife and I started looking for the door..... I wasn't prepared. I have been without power for a week in Sub-zero weather, I wasn't prepared and I didn't like it (neither did my kids). I lost a job and spent a year eating top raman and popcorn, I wasn't prepared.

Now days, I have 3 ways to heat my house... I keep enough food around that I could make it to the next job if need be... Every year we have events happen, sickness, heavy storms, and general miss haps. After each one, we have a family council, we ask what happened and why? what worked? what didn't work? what can we do to make it better next time... Then we develop a plan and do it...

Right now we should all be asking what can I do to make things better for my family? Do we see things on the horizon that we need to develop a plan for? A prepper should not be looking for the end of the world, they should be trying to be ready for what the world has to throw at them. Preppers are looking to get through life's disruptions with minimal inconvience. Good preppers learn from their mistakes and and try to share that knowledge so others don't have to endure the same hardships.

Sorry, got preachy there,
Urban

You wasn't preachin to this group. You just stated very well what many of us do. Continually ask what has or could happen, what can we do to deal with it if so. Always planning cause the scenario is rarely what you think it'll be. Even if you guessed right, likely to be different than what you thought by some degree.

Do the best you can and always learn from it

 

[Duncan]

I'm not a "god" person, but living in harmony with the Mother Earth is about as close as I get. Taking the mother's blessings and being a good steward in return seems right to me. By putting aside my food and other needs means I won't waste anything...

...and I like gardening and raising my own animals! It seems we have different reasons as preparedness people, but we all seem to find ourselves on the same path. That's comforting, in a way.

 

[Caribou]

I prep because it is the way I was raised. It is the way my parents were raised. I guess we never caught up to the 'just in time' crowd. Prepping is more than just food and TP. I don't buy #10 cans of freeze dried food I buy the food I normally eat, just more of it. I have thought I had adequate food supplies and found out that I was wrong. Experience has changed my definition of what being prepped is.

 

[Sam]

Everyone's life has changed due to the CV-19 and we are now living in the EOTHAWKI. Problem is that most people don't realize it! Items in many stores continue to be in short supply or non-existent to purchase. An unknown winter is on the way, pandemic still hunts for victims to kill and now with the fires in the west coast.
Burnt out families are going to need government help to survive the winter in meeting all of their needs. This is going to be a financial drain of private/local/state and eventually federal resources. Construction supplies are already going up in price and what can be purchased.
Too many people are still in denial of what is going on and refuse to prepare expecting the "government" to take care of them...a bad idea. What happens when the resources run out or are simply not there? When I was ill with cancer I watched alot of T.V. One thing were the old Civil Defense films on nuclear fallout and what people would do. On was on fallout shelters, public and home. I personally would prefer the home as going to the public shelter.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Everyone's life has changed due to the CV-19 and we are now living in the EOTHAWKI. Problem is that most people don't realize it! Items in many stores continue to be in short supply or non-existent to purchase. An unknown winter is on the way, pandemic still hunts for victims to kill and now with the fires in the west coast.
Burnt out families are going to need government help to survive the winter in meeting all of their needs. This is going to be a financial drain of private/local/state and eventually federal resources. Construction supplies are already going up in price and what can be purchased.
Too many people are still in denial of what is going on and refuse to prepare expecting the "government" to take care of them...a bad idea. What happens when the resources run out or are simply not there? When I was ill with cancer I watched alot of T.V. One thing were the old Civil Defense films on nuclear fallout and what people would do. On was on fallout shelters, public and home. I personally would prefer the home as going to the public shelter.

Hey @Sam, I agree with you 100%. A hard winter would be the cherry on the top of this 2020 cluster.... I have seen things relax a little over the last month and I figure it is a good time to top off the old tank (so to speak).

I have found that whenever I rely on someone or something too much I get let down at the worst time.... The help from Governments only works when a lot of people are helping a few people.... When it gets turned on its head (few people trying to help a lot) things start to break down.

I personally believe that our homes are our first line of defense shelters, but then again I also believe that we are responsible for our own wellbeing..... At least initially, we should do what we can for ourselves, then when we have done all we can, we can ask for help. But, I also know that just because we are asking for help doesn’t mean that we are entitled to it or that we should rely on it too much…

 

[Sam]

The big thing is NOT to let anyone, including family, know what you have got...keep a low profile. Play dumb/act smart. When a gov.com truck pulls up act like everyone else if not people will look at you and ask why? One thing I learned from the criminals that I worked with was a person is either a wolf or a sheeple. I help those who I can but not at the expense of my immediate family. To do otherwise is to rapidly deplete your resources and for what? If people are not smart enough to prepare for ??? then how can I help and the answer is that I cannot.
Over my lifetime I have dealt with too many people who have a dependent/entitled attitude. The minute things don't go their way guess who they turn on? I had too many people turn on me because I was not doing enough to get them things they felt they were entitled to. I then had to explain to my superiors why I did or did not do something in the case.
America and the world is at the start of hard times the likes not seen in over 100 years and I pity those who do not live in the country. How will you survive when the water stops and the sewage back up? The Chinese have a saying, "MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES!" and we certainly are.
Sam

 

[SheepDog]

I am planning for November 4th, 2020... and the aftermath.

 

[UrbanHunter]

I was reading the weather forecast this morning and noticed that they had a nice basic article on go bags...

https://weather.com/safety/news/2015-08-04-storm-prep-go-bag
I tend to prep for events in stages
8-24 hours (Go bags, strategically placed things in the house),
1-7 days (Power, water, food, cooking, heating, sanitation, security),
7+Days (fuel, stable food, water stores, sanitation, security, tools),
and then everyone’s favorite - COVID-19 (WTF was that???)

Looking for a silver lining COVID-19 has taught me a lot about the fragility of the just-in-time delivery systems and how long we have to react to new threats: (COVID-19 showed up in China in December (very little news), In February there was very little being discussed, In March people we starting to talk, By April the end of the world was here).

Based on this I would say that from the first talk of a new threat we have 60 days to get our houses in order, although something like a Pearl Harbor EPM would only give us a few minutes, but usually there is a lot of saber rattling (warning) before something like that.

Anyway, I think groups like this website should be a way to provide a distributed listening / data collection system that could give members an advantage….

 

[Neb]

I became a Prepper before the term prepper was invented after watching James Burke's Connections episode "The Trigger Effect".



That was back in the 80s or so. I was struck by his message about just how dependent we are on technology and it has only gotten worse since grocery stores now use "Just in time delivery" and the stock in the "back room" is long gone.

When young I did not have the resources to buy a lot of stuff beyond a back-pack but I spent a lot of time learning as much as I could about technology as I could so if the SHTF, I could with help, recreate technology. To that end I picked a target date that I could reasonably shoot for that could be done with stuff I have in my shop or could gather from what is around me. Late 1800's or early 1900's. Going beyond that would require teams of people working together with plenty of resources to recreate it. Could I build a vacuum tube in my garage? Maybe but a transistor would a stretch to far.

So eventually God Blessed me with The Princess who is woman of a similar mind. We have worked together to fill in as many gaps as we can. Case in point;

When the Kung-Flu hit and there was a shortage of masks, she went into her stash and produced an unopened of official N95 masks she had cached for a possible pandemic.

On another web-site long gone now I wrote a bit of a thesis about how we prep depends on what we think we need to prep for. I labled it "Choose the Form of the Destructor" (from the movie Ghostbuster)...



I also produced a chart (that I called a "Ben Diagram", bad pun based on a Venn Diagram used in logic). The basic idea I tried to share is that for any particular type of challenge we try to prepare for, there is some degree of impact to our lives that brings about TEOTWAWKI. The resent pandemic is is a relativel mild form of SHTF. Aside from running short on TP and some people not having food in the house, it rather mild and did not push us back on the technology ladder.

Jumping ahead...

I felt that an EMP that took out the power grid and destroyed all unprotected electronics would be the most devestating from of challenge that would effectively push us back into the stone age. There were other types of challenges that I modeled as iron age etc.

When examining those other scenarios, I decided that if I was prepared to handle an EMP or other event, that I would have the lesser challenges covered.

So I have been preparing for recovering from an EMP attack.

I have assembled a small machine shop that I plan to run of a steam engine SOMEDAY.

https://youtu.be/Zd-P4E9uLTI

I have been working on not only growing food but also producing my own seed that I supply my fellow survivors errr Thrivers with. If we do not have the genetics we would be in bad shape. I have alos started to learn how to tend to orchards, prune trees clone them etc.

So I have rambled on a bit and I should stop there with one more of my quotes.

"I have food that is rated to be around long after I am gone."

Thanks for reading,

Ben

 

[LadyLocust]

I want to answer before reading the other posts so I don't change how I respond. Hubby and I don't consider ourselves as preppers - though we've been called such as well as hippies, or crunchy or who knows what else. We don't have stores of food for a world apocalypse or whatever. We usually say "we live traditionally." We try to have enough corn to get us through until corn is back in season. Same goes for other items be it meat or veggies. It's only been in the past 50ish years that folks quit stocking up for winter - so I guess, we are actually just out of fashion I don't believe in reliance on mass transportation for survival. In addition to having enough to get us through winter, I also try to patronize local producers of those things we don't grow ourselves. By doing so, they know they can count on the sale of X amount of that item, and I'm not left without a source - securing my resources to an extent I suppose. I like to call it community. I make most of our cleaning and hygiene products because A) it's cheaper and B) mine aren't toxic. I didn't always, but we were having reactions to mystery chemicals and so it began. As far as the end of the world, like you said, that's up to God.
Disclosure: I do buy coffee, PB, and olives - none of which grow here. I am weak but caffeinated
Now I will go read other posts and might have to add-on.

 

[Dani]

@Sam I do prep, but like others, I do not consider myself as a prepper. . . It's a lifestyle for us. I never went hungary as a kid growing up being brought up in an upper middle class family, but when I went out on my own things changed a lot. I knew what it was like to have to struggle and budget my few funds and spend accordingly. Now I grow and preserve much of our produce and we raise our own meat, with cattle and hogs. In fact, we just picked up Miss Piggy today. She dressed out at 650 lbs exactly so my freezers are totally full now with beef, chicken and pork. I feel the need. . . to not go hungry and we gave some to each of the boys to help their households out too. I know what is going into our food source now which makes it much healthier the older we get and a lot cheaper in the long run with prices at the stores going sky high now. But I also know that my family will be just fine if there was an event to happen. It is a lot of work with the garden and animals but is very gratifying.

 

[UrbanHunter]

You know sometimes it is fun to lookup words.
When I looked up Prepper I got: ( Survivalists or Preppers ) People who actively prepare for emergencies, including possible disruptions in social or political order, on scales from local to international. Survivalism also encompasses preparation for personal emergencies, such as job loss or being stranded in the wild or under adverse weather conditions.

(To me this would seem to imply being an extremist)

But when I lookup Preparedness I get: Preparedness refers to a very concrete research-based set of actions that are taken as precautionary measures in the face of potential disasters. These actions can include both physical preparations (such as emergency supplies depots, adapting buildings to survive earthquakes and so on) and trainings for emergency action. Preparedness is an important quality in achieving goals and in avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes.

So from these perspectives I would prefer to be call a Common Individual who believes in Personal Preparedness or just a Well Predaired Individual.
I do not beleive that I am an Extreamist and take offense at anyone who would suggest such a thing (Wife and Kids excluded)

 

[HippoTwilight]

My household prepares for natural disasters and economic set-backs. Specific events we think would have a moderate effect on our day-to-day lives. Self-sufficiency is not possible at this stage in our lives and never will be in many regards, but we are working towards it the best we can.

Coming up with a comprehensive situation-specific playbook is nearly impossible, I tried. So we started cross-referencing Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs with generic situations. Like "We lose all income for 3 months" and come up with a plan for each of Maslow's needs. Most of the physical preps overlap, so we just plan for the longest 'likely' scenario in a given category. Some scenario's center around bugging in, other's require bugging-out to alternate shelter.

 

[Sam]

Maslow's, haven't heard that since college! You are correct in your assumption and reaction to it.
Sam